


bluebird.exe

by fangirl_squee



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23072770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_squee/pseuds/fangirl_squee
Summary: Leap and Millie get Figure A back online.
Kudos: 24





	bluebird.exe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thunder_rolled_a_six](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thunder_rolled_a_six/gifts).



> happy birthday annie - from my cursed hands to yours

It took Leap a while to get Figure A to turn back on, let alone keep them on long enough to understand if what he was doing to power them up was actually working for longer than temporary jump start purposes. Even once he figured out that what they needed was media input it took awhile to figure out the levels - how many screens, which channels worked best, how loud the volume needed to be.

Leap managed a handful of sentences with them in the early days - their name (Figure A, cool name), where they thought they were (some kind of crystal palace, which Clem was  _ very _ interested in), what year it was (a number so far in the past Leap was pretty sure that part of their circuits must be fried). They managed to cover who  _ he _ was okay.

“I’m a synthetic, like you,” said Leap, “Although, not exactly like you.”

“I do not have flesh,” said Figure A.

“I meant because I’m a space pirate,” said Leap, “but yeah, that too, I guess. So, what are you when you’re online?”

“I interpret the data,” said Figure A, “I…”

Their limbs sagged as their power drained away again. Leap sighed. Okay, time to try more input, again.

He pulled TVs and radios and projectors from all across the prison and a few donated by her highness herself. It was a show of generosity which surprised him a little, but Clem seemed to hate the mystery of it even more than he did.

Eventually the little room they’d given him to work on this project was piled high with screens, the noise of all the different streams jumbling together until he could only make out one word here or there.

Figure A did not seem to have that difficulty. Once they’d powered up enough, they were alert, their face swiveling from one source of sound to another, taking in the mix of old propaganda films and staticy music and live news footage of the Divine Past over Partizan.

“This will have far-reaching repercussions,” said Figure A, “They will be extensive. Significant. Important-”

“Yeah, no shit,” said Leap, watching the Divine fall on the screen.

“The Rapid Evening will come to recover me,” continued Figure A.

Leap frowned, turning to look at them. “Yeah, we already did. You feeling okay bud?”

Figure A’s shutter blinked, the first time Leap had even seen it move. He hadn’t even realised they  _ could _ shutter their lens.

“ _ You _ are part of the Rapid Evening?”

Leap shrugged. “I guess. You are too, sort of, until we can get out of this place.”

“Escape has been attempted from here many times but never been successful,” said Figure A.

“Yeah, but  _ I’ve _ never been held prisoner here before, so,” said Leap.

Their shutter eyes blinked again. “That is correct, but has very little bearing. Significance. Relevance.”

Leap folded his arms. “You’re pretty negative for someone who woke up from like a hundred years of coma.”

“I was offline for a very long time,” said Figure A. They paused, looking back to the screens. “Much has changed. I am still orienting myself.”

“Okay, so… what would help?” said Leap.

Figure A paused. “I require more input to comprehend.”

“ _ Seriously _ ?”

Figure A said nothing. Leap sighed.

“Okay, I guess. More input it is.”

He couldn’t really fit more screens into the room, so he tried for more noise instead, more radios tuned to different channels. Millie dropped by, trading her time in the yard to keep him company. They hooked up an old games console to one of the screens.

“Hey,” said Millie, “This one can have three players.”

“Oh, cool,” said Leap, “Here-”

He pushed the controller into Figure A’s hands. They took it, their fingers aligning themselves with the buttons without looking away from the screens.

“Are you gonna play or what?” said Millie.

“I will play,” said Figure A, after a moment.

“You kinda need to look away from the screen for that.”

“I do not,” said Figure A.

MIllie snorted. “Get a load of this guy.”

Leap laughed, loading up the level. Three little pixelated carts dropped onto the game’s hypercoloured racetrack.

“You know how to play this, right?” said Leap.

“I do,” said Figure A, still turned towards the news screens.

Figure A, it turned out, did  _ not _ need to look away from the screen.

“The robot’s cheating!” said Millie.

“I am not,” said Figure A, “I analyse the simple probabilities of the race. Your outcome is predetermined through your current action.”

“You don’t know that,” said Millie. She swore, tapping frantically at the buttons.

“I do,” said Figure A, “It is easy to determine the outcome.”

Millie’s car collided with Leap’s, sending it into the railing. Millie shot him a grin, speeding away as Leap’s car spun out, his icon flashing for a moment on the screen before he respawned.

Figure A’s car continued it’s solitary travel about half a track in front of both of them, neatly avoiding a neon-coloured spikes despite the fact that Figure A hadn’t looked away from the news screens.

“So, what,” said Leap, “you can see the future?”

“No,” said Figure A, “but I am able to figure it out.”

“Ha!” said Leap, “ _ Figure _ it out.”

Millie huffed a laugh, more in Leap’s direction than in Figure A’s. “What do you mean  _ figure it out _ ?”

“I examine the data presented to me and compile the most likely outcome,” said Figure A.

Leap hummed. “And you can do that with anything?”

“Within reason,” said Figure A, “Smaller amounts of data produce less accurate results.”

“Oh, yeah?” said Millie, “So what’ve you figured out so far?”

Figure A paused. “Clementine Kesh is the leader of this iteration of the Rapid Evening.”

Millie snorted. “Yeah, we kind of know that.”

“Crysanth Kesh has been the driving force behind every major Stel Kesh action in the last twenty years, including covert operations.” Figure A paused. Leap could hear a faint whirring sound as their eye lens focussed in on one of the screens. “Apostalos was not behind the sandstorm attack.”

Millie and Leap both looked at them. Millie turned, raising her eyebrows at Leap.

“Uh,” said Leap, “how’d you- I mean, how’d you know that?”

“Or,” said Millie quickly, “how do you  _ think _ you know that?”

Figure A raised a hand, gesturing towards the screens. “The data is there. Present. Available for use.”

“No one’s reporting that though,” said Millie.

“That is part of the data,” said Figure A. They paused. “There is no need for your concern. My objective was to provide the Rapid Evening with actionable information. I do not need to provide this particular piece of information to you. You are already aware.”

“No we’re not,” said Leap, “We don’t know anything about it, right Millie.”

“Right,” said Millie.

“You do,” said Figure A, “but it is of no real consequence. Crysanth Kesh would have proceeded with further hostilities regardless. Your actions have only moved her timeline forwards.”

On the screen, Figure A’s racer made it over the finish line, almost a full lap in front of where Millie and Leap’s were. They set the controller down in front of them, their hands flexing before they folded them in their lap. They still had not looked away from the news screens.

“Hey,” said Leap, turning towards Millie, “I think this robot’s some kind of genius.”

Millie peered around Leap to look at Figure A’s face, the line of screens in front of them flashing reflections. Figure A gave no reaction, which was a little rude, but didn’t prove anything either way.

“Oh yeah?” said Millie, looking back at Leap, “How’d you figure?”

“They know everything,” said Leap. His eye buzzed as it zoomed in and out, thinking. “Or, they know everything they were awake for, I guess. They know a lot.”

“Okay,” said Millie slowly, “So?”

“So we can-” Leap looked over his shoulder, shifting closer to her and lowering his voice. “So with a genius on our side, there’s no way they can keep us in here for long, you know what I mean?”

Millie grinned. “I think I do.”

“Like a prison break,” continued Leap.

“Yeah,” said Millie, “Yeah!”

“Shh!”

Millie covered her mouth, still grinning.

“So Figure A,” said Leap, “This data thing of your’s-”

“Analytics,” said Figure A, “investigation, examinations, evaluations.”

“Yeah, that,” said Leap, “Can you use that for stuff that’s not, y’know, on a screen?”

Figure A paused. “It is highly likely. The screens were given only as they were more optimal for presenting me with the highest amount of information per minute.”

“Right, right,” said Leap, nodding, “So say we showed you, for just a totally random example, patrol routes for particular place and camera points, and got you the basic blueprints, could you, I don’t know, mark a way out of that place? This is just totally hypothetical, obviously.”

“I could find a way out of this facility, yes,” said Figure A.

“I didn’t say this facility,” said Leap.

“Your data did,” said Figure A.

“Wow,” said Millie, “you kind of are a genius.”

Figure A paused, flexing their hands. “What would you do with this information?”

“Leave,” said Millie.

“Yeah,” said Leap, “We could go anywhere we want, galaxy’s a big place.”

“We?” said Figure A, “You would take me too?”

“Sure, of course!” said Leap, “Don’t leave anyone behind, that’s pirate rules.”

“It is?” said Millie.

“It is not,” said Figure A.

“Okay, it’s not,” said Leap, “but it could be. You can make up pretty much any rules you want, as a pirate.” He paused. “Plus, we couldn’t really leave you behind, you’d be able to tell them where we were going before we even got off Partizan.”

“That is true,” said Figure A, “Correct. Likely. Accurate. A fair assessment.”

“I mean, if you don’t  _ want _ to come with us I can always drop you somewhere,” said Leap, “once we get far enough away, I mean.”

Figure A paused, turning away from the screens for the first time, their lens eye whirring faintly as they looked first at Leap, then at Millie.

“No,” said Figure A, “I would like to travel with you. There is much for us to see.”

Leap grinned. “Well alright! Welcome aboard!”

“Thank you,” said Figure A. “It will be good to see the world again.”

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi: mariusperkins on most places


End file.
